Thursday, August 20, 2009

Whew! We have been busy these last couple of weekends, what with school starting and Dagny going back to her "school" and the two races that Doug signed me up for.

That's right.

He IS all that.

On my actual birthday, I got up and went for a run as usual. When I got back, Doug and the girls had made me muffins (breakfast of champions) and an unusual gift certificate. It listed two upcoming sprint triathlons and said it entitled the bearer to a ride, a sherpa and a cheering section.

How cool is that?

So, on August 9, Doug drove the whole family to Chattanooga for Quintana Roo's The Sports Barn sprint. It was a point to point race with two separate transition areas. We swam in Lake Chickamauga, then biked parallel to the river back downtown and ran a short loop in the downtown area. It was so much fun! Here is my race report. Quintana Roo is based in Chattanooga and raffled off a bike and a wetsuit. Though I won neither, it was pretty cool of them. This was a great race, especially for beginners and Chattanooga is a fun town.

Then, just 6 days later, Doug drove to Cordele and Dagny endured many ant bites so I could defend last year's 2nd place victory at the Georgia Veterans State Park Sprint at Lake Blackshear. This is our third year going to this race and it is still my favorite sprint, even with the gnats. And, as a bonus, Striplings grocery is located just outside the entrance to the park. They make fresh pork sausage and beef jerky to die for. Even the jaded legal department at my office was impressed. My friend Steph (who is from Sylvester, GA) was astounded that I had been to Striplings because she is well-acquainted with their goodness but couldn't imagine who in our department would be down there. Here is my race report for the GA Vets Race. And here are the photos - in the running shots you can see me gritting my teeth to pass the woman with the disk wheel who passed me on the bike and then my smile as I got by her. Hee. You can see that my trusty Adrenalines are holding up well, but I've got some weird outside-of-the-foot problem going on. I'm blaming it on all of the glide-stepping when I was in the band.

Here are the girls and I before the start. Annika wanted to try on my cap.

So, I had a great birthday and fabulous past two weekends. We are all low on sleep, the bills need paying and the house is a mess. It's a good thing we still have two weeks until college football starts!

In other news, we are still going full steam ahead towards our "A" races (the Atlantic Coast Half Ironman for me and the Beach to Battleship Full Ironman for Doug). I fully expect Doug to beat me at the Atlantic Coast race even though it isn't his "A" race and he won't be tapering. Apparently, those y-chromosomes just make you go faster. That, and the bazillion miles he has biked and run this summer. Notice I didn't mention the swim? Heh. Doug doesn't love to swim like I do.

Annika seems to be in good enough shape for her race in September. I've not found her any race attire yet, but I have a good idea on how to put the Gu name on her once we find an outfit. : ) Dagny is starting gymnastics this fall (through her school) and is over-the-moon excited. Annika is starting soccer in the church league, but is not so thrilled. We are hoping that it will grow on her enough that she won't mind it until lacrosse starts next year. She's very excited about lacrosse (pronounced "across") because her babysitter Meghan played it and Meghan is super cool.

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Yesterday was "meet the teacher" day at Annika' school. We went through the obligatory rig-a-ma-role of joining the PTA, purchasing the lunch card, bringing the school supplies and kleenex, obtaining the useless bus card and filling out the transportation form. UGH. Seriously, all but the actual meeting of the teacher and the bringing of the supplies could have been done online. Instead, the whole school showed up at 8:30am to do it all at once.

Total chaos.

Here's hoping that it will be easier next year when Doug's sister is Queen of the PTA.

Open house day is also the time that you sign up to be the room mom or to do the basket for the Christmas Extravaganza (trust me, you don't want to know - it's horrible). Neither of these were in my plans. I signed up to bring baked goods. Calling people on the phone, I can't do, but I can bake like nobody's business.

Anway, after finishing up Annika's meet and greet, I went to work. Late. Then, in the afternoon, one of the other moms from the class called me. She said that no one had signed up to be the room mom.

Me: "Well, I'm working full-time now, so I can't do it."Her: "Me, too. And, I'm traveling."Me: "So, we are out."

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. Much wasting of my work minutes.

This woman was relentless.

Me: "I'm working full-time now, so I don't have time to do it."Her: "Yes, and I'm traveling."Me: "Neither of us because we don't have time."

Then, we start theorizing on who might be able to do it. I thought of one mom, and the caller thought I should call and encourage her to do it. I declined and pointed out that I didn't know her well enough to call and "encourage".

I found out later that another mom in the class WANTED to be the room mom and had already volunteered to do it. The caller was just concerned about it and thought it would be good to line someone up.

Someone like me.

But I said no. I'm very proud of myself for not over-committing that way. It only took 30 minutes and sweating all the way through my shirt.